Mask on Forehead reliable distress signal?

[Ana]

WANTED:

MOF Dive Buddy with Datamask. I will be your dive buddy until I get a datamask, yours.

You may want to reconsider your request. I happen to use a Datamask, just as the other masks I own, it goes to the forehead if I have to wait on the surface for a boat after my dive. It's been a bunch of dives (around 2 years +) since I got it.
Diving with me until my mask becomes your mask is going to take a very long time (haven't lost a mask in several decades).

I don't know you but based on your post, I bet you don't have what it takes to tolerate my ways diving.

 

[RonFrank]

OK, this thread is a year old, and the TWO new posts are mostly off topic (wanted, buddy with datamask??)

 

[RJP]

Has anyone seen a distressed diver actually stop and think ' I am in distress, I will put my mask on my forehead'.

I'm really tired of people interpreting "a sign of a distressed diver" as "a distress signal." It's like thinking that bleeding profusely is a "distress signal" as opposed to a sign that someone is in trouble

It's not that people will THINK to place their mask on their forehead as an SOS signal - it's that often distressed divers will "reject their gear" once they get to the surface: reg gets spit out and mask gets pushed up on the forehead WITHOUT thinking. That's the problem. They should be thinking "I should leave my gear in place." They are not SIGNALING distress. Their actions are providing a SIGN that they are in distress.

And THIS I have seen: had a student just yesterday that headed for the surface and the first thing she did when we got their was spit out their reg and push their mask up on their forehead.

Like any other "sign" it needs to be taken in context with the overall situation.

 

[Jax]

OK, this thread is a year old, and the TWO new posts are mostly off topic (wanted, buddy with datamask??)

So True! But this topic made me go back to my books -- No mention of Mask-On-Forehead as a distress signal, or of a diver in distress. c1999.

So, is this topic just very out-of-date? Where some people argue the point just because we've 'always done it that way'?

 

[WD8CDH]

My PADI instructor (back in the early 70s) said put your mask on your forehead, on your face, around you neck or put your arm thru the strap. Just don't put it on the edge of the boat.